The Fall of the Household Crusher

Patty’s Wed Nov 11, 2009 email to Scott:

“This afternoon, Andrew knocked over the big filing cabinet in our office.  Thankfully, no one was hurt and amazingly, the big printer still works.  However, the top file drawer cannot be closed, which means that the middle file drawer cannot be opened.

I will let you deal with Andrew on it.  I don’t care what (if any) consequence you give him.  If there is one, I would like to know (in writing) what it is, so I can carry it out.  The one thing I would ask is that you try to figure out a way to get the middle drawer open. . .”

Scott’s reply to Patty:

“How did Andrew manage to do this?  That is not an easy feat. . . Have you tried to scan or copy anything since it fell?”

Patty’s explanatory email back to Scott:

“He is a man of many skills, some less obvious than others.

“The story goes that he went up to sharpen his pencil.  Note that he had three sharp pencils in his school box on the dining room table, but…  While up there, he decided to play with the file cabinet drawers, pulling them out and pushing them in.  As you know, if you happen to get two drawers out at once, there’s enough weight to topple the cabinet, so I guess that’s what happened.  We heard a scream and then an enormous crash.

“Once Jessica ascertained that he was all right, I decided to stay downstairs for a while and not look, while the three of them worked to set things right.  Trying to reduce my stress, you know.

“There was much grunting, groaning, and breathless giving of directions.

“There’s a lot of slippery graphite under my desk (I guess where the pencil sharpener contents fell) and Andrew claims that the printer is scuffed.  The top drawer of the file cabinet is a bit lopsided and won’t close.  I am astounded that the printer still works.  No, I have not tried to copy or scan.”

NOTE:  The filing cabinet in question is a three-drawer jobbie, about three feet long (left-to-right), three-and-a half feet high, and nineteen inches deep.  When you open a drawer, the endless reams of junk files are filed sideways, perpendicular to the front of the cabinet.  Atop the file cabinet are positioned:

- the outgoing mail bin

- a four-tier set of plastic stackable in-boxes that hold paper, cardstock, and Scott’s incoming stuff

- two cell phone chargers

- an electric pencil sharpener

- an HP color laserjet multi-function printer

Furthermore, note that the printer, stationed atop the three-and-a-half feet off-the-floor file cabinet, measures (according to its online HP owner’s manual) 20.8 inches high, 22 inches deep, and 17.25 inches wide, giving it a volume of some four-and-a-half cubic feet.  Loaded as it is with four toner cartridges, it weighs in at a whopping 48.5 pounds, and all that volume and weight came crashing down when Andrew tipped the file cabinet over.

It’s truly amazing that the printer still prints, and it’s more amazing that Andrew wasn’t hurt.

This morning, Scott managed to bang, beat, coerce, or forcibly twist (I did not personally witness the procedure) the top file drawer back into a shape that once again allows it to slide in and out as designed.  Perhaps this is a sign that I need to sort and trash most of what’s been buried and unused in those three file drawers for the past ten or so years.  Hmmm…

Tooting Josiah’s horn

All three of you blog readers might like to know that yesterday, Josiah beat Scott at ping pong SEVEN TIMES IN A ROW!  I think there were some handicaps involved, but let me assure you that there was much rejoicing on the part of my son.

Explosions all around

Yesterday being July 5th, the boys were itching to buy their annual stash.  Jessica was kind enough to take them to town right before supper.  They passed two closed establishments, but eventually found a fireworks stand that was still open.  They seemed pleased with their purchases, and there’s been a lot of noise and smoke around here ever since.

This morning, when the young child was sent out to bounce on the trampoline for 15 minutes to get some exercise, he instead spent that time shooting fireworks.  He then came in crying and complaining that he had gotten hurt, and I – Miss Sensitivity that I am – admonished him that I held something close to no compassion for a boy who gets hurt when he disobeys.  He also wanted to go back to town to buy more fireworks, but I told him he could not even mention that request again till all his chores and academics were done.

At 2:00 PM, his work completed, Andrew made a proper request for transportation so that he could purchase another $5.00 worth of fireworks.  Money does seem to burn extremely large holes in his pockets.  Realizing that today was his last possible opportunity to buy explosives for a whole year, I relented and took him to town again.   The last stand (pun intended) was indeed still open, but the picking were very slim.  However, he did scarf up a few items, and it’s been another afternoon/evening of noise and smoke.

July is a month in which our boys are never bored, and it provides the added benefit that the anticipation of being able to make something go “BOOM” later strongly incents them to complete their less-than-exciting tasks earlier.

“A wise mom maximizes any and all available motivators – including TNT.”

~ walnutshademom 9:12

Starts with ‘p’

So dad and the kids are swimming down at the creek, and Scott is talking about a proposed family trip.  Discussing possible details, he says, “I’m thinking about borrowing the K family’s camper.”  Josiah replies, “Isn’t that a little prepositionous?  I mean, prepositional?”

Dead tired

After a fun lunch date with a friend, I returned home at 1:40 PM to find the house smelling of fresh-baked cookies.  Andrew had obviously been making treats to share with the other kids at church tonight.

However, we had to leave for our Springfield run in 45 minutes, and there were a few things I wanted to discuss with Andrew before we left, so I called (and called and called) through the house for him.  No answer.

I opened the back door and hollered, then did the same out the front.  No answer and no answer.

I thought maybe he had ridden his bike down the road, so I waited a few minutes and tried again, this time in my loud, piercing, falsetto semi-scream; the one that – when the wind is calm, as it was today – can be heard up to half a mile away.  No answer.

I did the same thing in the house, causing mild-to-moderate hearing loss in two other family members.  No answer.

I talked with Jessica and Josiah;  neither of them knew where Andrew was.

We were down to less the thirty minutes before lift-off, and I really needed to find him.  Jessica offered to ring the bell (our dinner bell), which, she reminded me, is loud – and it is, but for sheer carrying power, I don’t think it comes close to my loud, piercing, falsetto semi-scream.  She rang it for about 15 seconds.  No answer.

And then, being the loving and responsible mom that I am, I gave up and assumed that since Andrew knew we were leaving at 2:30, he’d show up by 2:30.  I just had way too much to do in those remaining few moments to worry any further about his whereabouts.

About 2:20 PM, Andrew walked into my office.  From his bedroom.  Looking very frowsy.  He had been ASLEEP IN HIS ROOM the whole time!  When questioned, he said, “No, I didn’t hear you call me.  I didn’t hear anything.”  This despite the fact that during my 15 or so minutes of repeatedly screaming his name, anyone within 200 feet would have needed ear protection!  I guess he was dead tired.

What’s in YOUR sandwich?

So, I walked into the kitchen midmorning-ish, planning to eat a bit of breakfast and then do my assigned breakfast cleanup task, and what was waiting for me on the kitchen counter, but a block of Colby Jack cheese that someone had left sitting out, unwrapped.  Lovely.

Frankly, food left out isn’t all that unusual around here, but this particular hunk of cheese was unique in that it was studded with tiny silver balls. Hmmm. . . ?  Curious, I picked it up and realized that it was covered with – you guessed it – BBs!

Yes, my fifteen-year-old son had been using his BB gun that morning to scare  squirrels off the bird feeder, and while watching squirrels leap in terror, I guess he thought of an experiment:   “I wonder how far into the cheese a BB would go on one pump?”

So he pumped, aimed, and fired, but the poor BB merely imbedded itself in the surface of the cheese.  However, it had been a satisfying sequence of events, so he continued to pump, boom-thunk. . . pump, boom-thunk. . . pump, boom-thunk, until there were some 20 BBs neatly lodged in the cheese.

This was certainly fun, and more power would surely be even more fun!  “I wonder how far in one would go with TWO pumps?”   Pump, pump, boom-thunk, and the projectile went in a very impressive inch-and-a-half.  Wow.  And, then, being the one who does not (yet) pay for the groceries, he left the cheese there for me to find.

At which point I called for him to come take a picture of the BB-studded cheese, remove the BBs, and put the cheese away.  He obeyed, partially.  He took no picture (so sad),  picked the BBs off the surface, and then realized that he couldn’t extricate the embedded BB without ripping open the block of cheese.  Therefore he did what any 15-year-old male would do:  he wrapped it up and put it in the fridge.

Which is why at lunch, Andrew reportedly bit into a BB in his sandwich.

Addendum:

My friend DC emailed me, “I am just curious…  Did Josiah pellet the cheese while it was in the kitchen?”

To which I replied, “Yes.  He says the cheese was on the counter in the kitchen.  He did not have the tip of the gun against the cheese, but claims it was back about 14 inches.  I’d say that would still be considered point blank range… “

Found word

While playing Keesdrow today, Andrew wanted to know if he could use the dictionary to look for words.  We all said no, but then relented, as he was decidedly the vocabularic underdog.

In this particular game, it is to your advantage to play words that use a given letter more than once, so imagine our amazement when he confidently (with open dictionary in one hand) played L-A-G-N-A-P-P-E.  What the heck was that?

He grinned and read to us the definition:  “a small gift given with a purchase to a customer.”  Well, so it was, although with effort, I vaguely remembered seeing that word spelled with an “i” many years ago.  However, after the “pupa” incident, I wasn’t about to challenge that, and Andrew continued to scan the dictionary and find interesting words.

A sprain’s a pain

Well, I guess if one is a gymnast, a sprained ankle is bound to occur sooner or later.  It’s just that we’d expect it to happen while sticking a landing or something.  Instead, Andrew was running across the floor at the gym, didn’t notice a piece of paper lying on the floor, slipped on it and fell, slightly spraining his foot and ankle.  I will say that a whiny boy who cannot run and bounce – especially when the weather is this nice – does not add a fun dynamic to our Team.

He doesn’t like to keep the foot and ankle wrapped “because it hurts.”  Then, it hurts because it’s not wrapped.  However, between church and seeing Grandma and Grandpa, we have lots of fun planned tomorrow, and I am fully expecting the ankle to be feeling much better and even forgotten in the excitement of the day.

Why is it . . .

. . . that if one boy is sent to take out the trash, soon two boys will be seen in the backyard, pulling up clumps of wild onions and slinging them against the smokehouse wall?

Out of the mouths of babes

It’s time to measure angles in Singapore math, and Andrew needed a protractor.  I though one would find such things in the pencils and rulers area at Wal-Mart, but not so.  Protractors are located with the crayons and art supplies.

Singaporean students must use mini protractors (4″ long at the base and solid, as opposed to the 6″ cutout American version) because the lines of all the angles in the book that Andrew needed to measure were way too short to reach the markings on the protractors we had around here.  I’m handing down our used math textbooks to another mom, so I really didn’t want to write in the book and extend all the lines.  At Wal-Mart, the only protractor I could find with degree markings on the inside edge of the cut out (which the book lines were long enough to reach as printed) came in a pouch with a matching compass.  That was okay.  He’d need a compass someday, too.

I put the packet on his desk and the next day he attacked angle measurements with a gusto.  That evening, out of the blue, he asked me a funny question.  Almost all of Andrew’s comments and questions have nothing to do with whatever is occuring at the time.  He’s very “stream of consciousness.”

“Mom, what’s that thing with the pencil and the dead pen that won’t write for?”

“Huh?  Do what?”

“You know, that orange thing that matches my protractor.  It has a little bitty pencil in it, but the pen won’t write at all.  I think it needs to be thrown out.”

“Ohhhhh!  THAT thing.  It’s called a compass, and it’s used to draw circles of various sizes.”

“Well, the pencil will work, but they gave us a dead pen.”

“That’s not a pen.  It’s a point that marks the middle of a circle.  When you need to use it for math, I’ll show you how it works.”

I thought the “dead pen” description was pretty unique.